Wolfen

A New York City detective is assigned to investigate a string of brutal killings in which the victims appear to have been torn apart by animals. Working alongside a forensic specialist, he finds the cases pointing toward something older and stranger than an ordinary predator, and toward a legend tied to the city's own ground. The inquiry moves through the Bronx and Manhattan, where the evidence keeps refusing to fit a conventional explanation.

Wolfen was released in 1981, directed by Michael Wadleigh, whose only previous feature as director was Woodstock in 1970. Wadleigh also produced the film and shares screenplay credit with Eric Roth and David Eyre. Albert Finney plays Dewey Wilson, with Diane Venora as Rebecca Neff, Edward James Olmos as Eddie Holt, Gregory Hines as Whittington, Tom Noonan as Ferguson and Dick O'Neill as Warren. The production, from Orion Pictures and King-Hitzig Productions, ran 115 minutes and cost about 17 million dollars; its worldwide gross of roughly 11 million dollars left it short of its budget.

On IMDb the film holds a critics' rating of 6.3 from 26 reviews, slightly above the audience score of 5.9 from 264 votes on TMDB, a small and divided sample on both sides. The credited cast numbers 67 and the credited crew 81, marking a large production for a director who had made just one film before it.